Mother's Ruin
by Holz090
Summary: "No one ever believes a drunk"


I literally wrote this in one go, at 2am when I was bored on a night shift and wanted to right of the many, many wrongs in the show right now. Consider it a stream of consciousness.

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"I must've been about 15," he'd said, so matter-of-factly, his bluntless hard to bare. "She was drunk, I didn't believe her". Sums it up, really. Because of course, why would he have believed her? Why would anyone have believed a word that came out of that woman's mouth? That was the problem.

It all made sense now, though. The instant dislike she'd taken to Paul hadn't been dislike at all – it was guilt. Guilt and fear. It was the reason she'd sat with a face like a slapped backside all day at their wedding, probably the reason she'd got so hammered, been physically carried to a taxi by a distant relative of Paul's. Oh, the shame. But if only Carla had taken the time to talk to her, to find out what was going on, rather than retreating outside and apologising for her family. All those nights they'd rowed, cheap ornaments thrown across the room by a woman she barely knew as she'd slated him, told her he'd changed her. One sentence would've put a stop to it all, the one thing she'd never said. "Don't do it Carla, he's your cousin". Oh, that would've stopped it alright.

But no, it was easier to just have another drink, and another, and another. Just drink your problems away, and when that doesn't work, just go out and fuck a drug dealer for something to shove up your nose for free. Who cares? It's only your daughter's life, it's not like it's important.

Who cares that your children, barely out of primary school, are knocking on doors asking for food like Oliver fucking Twist? Who cares that when your son threw up at school and had to be sent home, he had to sit in the office all day instead because his mother was too wasted at 12 o'clock in the afternoon to answer the phone? Your daughter burned herself on a saucepan once, trying to cook you dinner while you were passed out on the sofa. She was six years old and a neighbour had to dress the wound because you wouldn't wake up.

When people told her to calm down, attempted to defend that lying scum that waits until now to tell her he's her father, she just wants to scream at them. What do they know, they weren't there. They didn't see how he watched her walk home from school in a jumper that frays at the edges and hasn't seen a washing machine in weeks, and says nothing. They weren't there the time her mother tried to slit her wrists in the bathroom after a bottle of vodka. Only she was so fucked she couldn't even do that right and it all just made a huge mess that stained the skin for weeks. They weren't there later that night, when her mother had sobbed across her lap as Carla stroked her hair, telling her not to be so stupid again. Three days before her twelfth birthday, that one. They didn't see how Johnny handed her a twenty pound note the next day, and she barely skipped a beat in walking it to the nearest offy and exchanging it for a nice new bottle of gin. Mother's ruin, isn't that what they call it? How apt.

See that was the problem with his guilt money. It only made things worse. If he'd cared enough to take more than a passing glance, he'd have seen that. Sometimes, Carla would find herself feeling sorry for her mother, wishing she'd been older and wiser and could somehow have helped her. But then she'd remember all those nights she'd sat in her bedroom crying while her mother drank herself into oblivion, all along withholding the truth that could've saved her, and she was only filled with anger. Aidan and Kate, they had a trust fund for God's sake. They'd had nice clothes, hot food every night, the unconditional love of a parent, two parents even, and Carla had hated them for it. She'd been sick with jealousy, forever wishing she could've had just a piece of that. And all along, she could have. Should have. She'd never forgive either of them for that.

And then there was Lou. She was nice; she'd given Carla and Rob dinner a few times, even let them stay one night when their mother was nowhere to be found, on one bender or another. But she'd died hating her, too. Some of her last thoughts would've been how she wished she'd never been born, how happy she'd have been if that kid from the other end of the estate had never been conceived in the back of a clapped out car. She'd have taken it all back if she could, Carla was sure of it. All the food and the hugs and the supportive words.

That weekend in the caravan, Johnny's big gesture, his big attempt to alleviate his own guilt. Carla remembered it now. You see, they all blur into one after a while, all the nights of watching someone self-destruct, shout abuse and love and everything inbetween at you in the space of an hour. The mornings of hiding in your bedroom until you heard finally get off the sofa, trying to gauge her mood by how heavily she banged the coffee mug on the table, wondering whether it was safe to leave for a glass of water yet – her first real taste of gambling. But of course, in this wonderful caravan they had no such luxury of a separating door. This was the night she heard her spluttering all night, the murmurings, the moments of dazed confusion as she'd woken herself up and wondered aloud where she was, before slipping back into her self-inflicted coma. It was all coming back now, how she and Rob had curled up next to each other on the single bed, trying to block out the sounds. That morning he'd insisted on making breakfast, even carried her mother's to her while she continued to sleep it off. See, that was the problem with his claims that he "didn't know" how bad things were. He was right fucking there, he'd literally joked about it that morning, tried to laugh it off like this was a rare occurrence, a hilarious story they'd all exchange in a few months' time. He didn't know? Didn't want to know more like.

But now the secret was out. Her mother had long since drunk herself to death and the memory of Lou's suicide –let's face it, that's what it was, had begun to fade. There was no one else to ask what happened that night, what degree of off her face her mother had been in when she'd told her, and what deranged thoughts or which argument had led her to reveal all to Johnny's wife, but not her own daughter, that night. Why march round there and spill your guts, then come home later on and say nothing to the one person this affected more than anyone? A woman was dead, it's not like things could've got much worse had she told her. It would've only saved years of lies. But this was a conversation she could never have. A part of Carla wanted to travel down to that cemetery they buried her in and scream at her gravestone, just for the hell of it. "Why could you not just tell me?" she'd scream, "was I not important enough? Did my life not matter enough?"

She'd long since accepted that she didn't have her mother's love, but surely she at least had her respect? You don't lie to people you respect, especially when they're scrubbing the carpet you threw up on for the third time that week.

Except she had told someone. She'd told Rob. And he'd dismissed it outright. And, if she was totally honest with herself, Carla probably would have too. Because no one ever listens to a drunk.


End file.
